NASA’s Original Lunar Images Are Housed in a Former McDonald’s

YouTube sensation Veritasium visits an abandoned McDonalds on the NASA Ames campus to reveal the first original lunar images, now being converted from film to digital media with the NASA LOIRP project. Watch the transformation of the original lunar Earth rise! Credit: www.rawscience.tv

At an old McDonald’s at NASA Ames Research Park in Moffett Field, California, there are no Big Macs or chicken nuggets.

Instead, there are reels and reels of original footage from the five lunar orbiters NASA launched in 1960. It’s all part of the Lunar Orbiter Image Recovery Project, an effort by Dennis Wingo and colleagues to digitize the old tapes.

Follow Veritasium on a tour to see how the old tapes are being transferred into the digital age.